Assembling cyavanaprāsh, Ayurveda's best-selling medicine

Abstract

The paper discusses the many forms and representations of cyavanaprāsh, Ayurveda's best-selling medicine, already mentioned in Caraka's Compendium (c. 200 CE). The medicine's compositions, applications, and meanings, change over time and from locality to locality. Cyavanaprāsh is, for example, a patriotic formula, a booster of the immune system, a modern geriatric drug, and one of the elements in canonical Ayurvedic treatments. In the beginning of the 19th century cyavanaprāsh was a patriotic formula for fortifying Indian bodies and the nascent Indian nation. Nowadays the medicine is a Fast Moving Consumer Good (FMCG) and a money maker for Dabur India Ltd., the world largest Ayurvedic manufacturer. Instead of vitalising the nation its consumption now promises to make urban middle class consumers effectively modern. Branding and modern science must make Dabur Chyawanprash attractive in the eyes of these consumers. Ayurveda and cyavanaprāsh are also part of a global counter culture marked by neo-Orientalism and Ayurvedic medicines as facilitators of spirituality. The marketing of cyavanaprāsh by India's largest Ayurvedic manufacturer is used as a case study for discussing the proliferation of Ayurvedic brands and its critics. The imaging of Ayurvedic brands such as Dabur Chyawanprash threatens to obscure the fact that Ayurveda represents a unique way of looking upon health, disease and the human body. The proliferation of brands also makes Ayurvedic medicines more expensive and puts pressure on the natural environment as the main supplier of Ayurvedic ingredients.

Keywords:

• Ayurvedic medicines
• commodification
• health products
• direct-to-consumer advertising
• orientalism
• counter-culture
• India

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Jan Meulenbeld, Sjaak van der Geest, the participants of the conference, The Pharmaceutical life Cycle, and two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Ethics: This type of research does not require institutional ethical approval in the Netherlands. Oral consent for interviews and observations was obtained from the interviewees and their organizations. The research followed the guidelines from the American Anthropological Association ethical guidelines. The research was associated with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the University of Amsterdam.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Although there are almost 8000 Ayurvedic manufacturers, the large majority of these firms are cottage industries (that is, with a yearly turnover of $250,000 or less). At the same time, a small number of firms account for a large part of the business leading to a rather concentrated industry – ten Ayurvedic firms produce 60% of all Ayurvedic pharmaceutical products.

The author estimates the total sales of Ayurvedic products in 2010 to be between US$3 to 4 billion. However the large majority of these products are ‘daily necessities’ such as shampoos, soaps, toothpastes, hair oils, creams like skin whiteners, digestives, sweets, and aphrodisiacs. These products are Ayurvedic in the sense that they carry the label ‘Ayurvedic Patent & Proprietary Medicine’. Ninety percent of industrially manufactured Ayurvedic products on the Indian market are branded commodities. The author estimates that since the booming of the Ayurvedic industry in the 1990s, ‘classical’ Ayurvedic medicines – Ayurvedic medicines that at least resemble the names, compositions, preparation methods, and indications of use mentioned in the Ayurvedic canons – make up between 5 and 10% of the sales of Ayurvedic products. For an analysis of this state of affairs see Bode (2008, 56–59) and Bode (2009, 255–256).

2. For a brief history and the restructuring of Dabur into a producer of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs) see Bode (2008, 88–93). See also Banerjee (2009).

3. See Bode (2009, 259–260) for the Ayurvedic and modern pharmacological effects of the Indian gooseberry.

4. For Cyāvana see Meulenbeld (1999-2002, IA, pp. 51, 53, 145, 155–156, 170, 471, 488, 569; IIA: 6, 84, 358, 572).

5. See Green and Kesselheim (2011) for similar biomedical drugs looking different.

6. See Watkins (2012) for making biomedical pharmaceuticals into daily necessities.

7. Interview with Dabur's marketing director Health Care Products, New Delhi, November 1997.

8. See Gaudillière and Thoms (2003) for the making of biomedical drug markets through branding and modern science. See also Watkins (2012).

9. See for example Dabur India (1997); Himalaya Drug Company (n.d.) (1930-1980): 50 Years of Himalaya; Zandu, Nature's Marvel. A Companion Guide to Ayurveda. See for more examples Bode (2008).

10. See for example www.dabur.com/Products-Health%20Care-Chyawanprash, accessed July 2013.

11. For a description and genealogy of Modern Ayurveda see Smith and Wujastyk (2008) and Berger (2013).

12. The idea of individual codes holding together various assemblages the author took from Mukharji (2012).

13. There is a lot of literature on the commoditisation of Indian medicine as well as the commercialisation of traditional medicines of other countries. For India see, for example, Leslie (1989), Van Hollen (2005), Banerjee (2002, 2009), Ecks (2014), and Madhavan (2013); Afdhal and Welsch (1988) for Indonesia; Kim (2009) for South Korea; Janes (2002) for Tibetan medicine, and Miles (1998) for Ecuador.

14. See Bode (2008, 167, Table 4.1), for a comparison of Ayurvedic anthropocentric pharmacology and modern pharmacology.